Purpose: The aim of this study was to analyze the cause of alcoholism based on a systematic review of previous studies published from 2009 to 2014. Methods: The study design was a systematic review of the literature in which factors constituting causes of alcoholism were analyzed. Search words used to retrieve foreign studies were “alcoholism” or a combination of “alcohol dependency” and “etiology” or “predictor. Research Information Sharing Service (RISS) of the Korea Education and Research Information Service and Dbpia, a database for domestic academic studies, were used as search engines for retrieving domestic papers. Results: The systematic literature review found that for emotional and psychological factors as etiology of alcoholism, abuse-related factors had the largest proportion with a total of 63%. Conclusions: In this study factors related to alcoholism were examined in terms of emotions, psychology, environments, families and others. As a result, it was found that alcohol consumption at an early age and experience of abuse were major causes for alcoholism.